


music to make you stagger

by crownsandbirds



Series: so, darling, play your violin (it's what you live for) [6]
Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drinking, Heavy Angst, Kind of happy ending, Kinda?, M/M, Mild Injury, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Original Character(s), Post-Break Up, Recovery, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 23:09:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20266051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: 'He wakes up with a start at 5 in the morning.His first instinct is to reach for Akihiko.'the first two weeks after Akihiko leaves.





	music to make you stagger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ikvros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikvros/gifts).

1\. 

The first day, Ugetsu arrives home with a terrible headache and his hair unacceptably messy. 

He throws the car keys at the general direction of the counter, doesn't check to see where they land, roughly takes off his shoes and throws them at a corner somewhere - his jacket ends up at the back of the couch, his shirt on the floor of their - _ his _ , his mind corrects itself with a surge of pain - _ his _bedroom, and he doesn't bother with kicking off his pants. 

He doesn't remember where he threw his phone. He doesn't actually care. _ I'm a goddamn genius _ , he thinks, the voice inside his skull snarling with arrogance, _ if anyone wants to contact me, they can fucking wait. _

He thinks it's a bit after one in the morning. He doesn't remember the drive home, he doesn't remember the minutes between walking from the car to the front door. His head hurts so much he thinks it's going to explode from the inside out, his brains splattering on the perfectly white pillowcase. 

He doesn't think about what happened. He doesn't feel the absence of anything - and if he does, it's on a too-deeply visceral level, somewhere on the tissue surrounding his arteries, in the spaces that connect the chambers of his heart, far away from his conscious mind. He doesn't think about it because he's more exhausted than he remembers ever being in his life.

The first day, he falls asleep. He doesn't have dreams. 

2.

He wakes up with a start at 5 in the morning. 

His first instinct is to reach for Akihiko. 

The bed is cold as it has been for the past few days. He wraps the blankets tighter around himself, hides under them and closes his eyes like he's a child again, the songs he listened to on his grandfather's radio rattling around his skull and making a place for themselves in the curve of his ears. 

He doesn't glance at his phone or at the digital clock on the bedside table (the one that Akihiko bought, as a matter of fact, because the two of them kept oversleeping and arriving late to class). He turns on his side, keeps hiding under the blankets and stares at his hand. 

_ You have beautiful hands _ , his piano teacher told him once. _ A musician's hands. _

His fingers are long, elegant, and they look gorgeous when skimming over piano keys and pressing down on violin strings. His palm is soft, and there's a small scar on the back Akihiko was fond of kissing when he was taunting Ugetsu about being a spoiled little prince. 

Once upon a time, a psychic told him he would never be truly happy, because two of the lines in his palm didn't meet where they were supposed to. He stares at them now, traces them with his fingernail. Wonders what would happen if he brought a knife to them, trailed down their length with the tip of a blade as blood oozed out and dripped down his fragile wrist. Wonders what fate would say then. 

He raises his hands to his lips, presses his tongue to his fingers carefully, as if learning about his own body. Remembers when Akihiko would take them into his mouth, trace them with his skilled lips, with the cold humid metal of his tongue piercing. Remembers when he pressed down on Akihiko's tongue, showing him where he wanted his next piercing to be. Remembers teeth against his knuckles, fingers entwined with his, the feeling of caressing soft blonde hair buzzed short. His nails digging, carving little red rivers of pain on Akihiko's back and shoulders. 

The first time he held a violin. The smooth curve of the wood, the resistance of the strings that would soon learn to bend under his touch, the length of the bow. How he'd longed to press his lips against it, how he touched it instead, shaking with devotion. 

The first time Akihiko kissed him, how he'd reached for him and wrapped his fingers in fists around his hair and arched up against his body and pressed his mouth to his. How Akihiko had taken his waist between his strong hands, held him as if he was precious, as if his silhouette was made of glass, of crystal, as if Akihiko never wanted to let go. As if they could die with their hands on each other. 

The last time their hands had touched. How Akihiko had held, and held, and squeezed for a split second before letting go and turning away. 

Ugetsu thinks about grabbing his violin and playing. 

He turns to the other side, buries his face in the pillow, and cries until he exhausts himself out and falls asleep again. 

3.

The third day, he jerks off.

Ugetsu knows he's beautiful just as he knows he's a genius. It's not arrogance - he knows himself to be arrogant and prideful and egocentric, but being aware of his beauty comes less from an assumed place of superiority, and more from a habit of internalizing what he's been told all his life. He knows his hair is soft to the touch, knows it frames his face prettily. Knows his eyes are a rare shade of grey that verges on being golden, knows his silhouette is graceful and the curve of his lips fine and elegant like a drawing. He uses that to his advantage much as he uses everything else he can; he's intimately familiar with seduction, with how to lean and melt and smile and wink until people are distracted enough by his gorgeous face that he can mold them and their reactions into whatever suits him best. 

All told, he doesn't _ have _ to be alone in his room, naked under the heavy blankets, taking himself in hand and fluttering his eyes closed. He could convince almost anyone under the sun to join him in his bed and work to please him. 

Almost.

But he is alone. He's alone because it's two in the morning and he can't sleep. Because he can't stop thinking about Akihiko. 

He scolded himself for being weak and pathetic all the way from his bath to his current position in the bed - slapped himself because he knew what he was going to do, because he has been feeling that strange itch on the base of his spine, impossible to ignore, ever since he woke up this morning. He managed to forget about it by spending most of his day furiously practicing the second half to a Mozart concerto - but when he placed his violin lovingly back in its case and straightened his back and decided to call it quits for the night, the nameless urge came back intensely, and he caught himself staring intently at the white tiles as he showered, his mind stammering and stuttering over memories he would rather forget. 

He considered not going to bed at all, staying up all night and continuing to practice until dawn, until hopefully the sunrise managed to erase some of his dreadful yearning, but he was tired enough that even his impossible stubbornness couldn’t brush it off, his shoulders weighed down with exhaustion and his fingers clumsy with sleep deprivation. He can only fuck up a song so many times before he starts getting frustrated at his own incompetence, so he went to bed, and here he is, stroking over his cock and _ remembering. _

He remembers Akihiko pushing him down on the mattress, undressing him with hasty, experienced hands, spreading his legs open. Remembers Akihiko fitting his hands on the backs of his thighs and hosting him up on the kitchen counter, making a space for himself in the open angle of his knees, kissing him until his ears were ringing with unknown symphonies. Remembers the first time they fucked, back in high school, back when Ugetsu’s bed was still only his, Akihiko pressing down on his body and making a place for himself inside Ugetsu. Remembers riding Akihiko, sliding down his length, feeling hands tight around his thighs as he moved with a sinuous grace Akihiko was so fond of. Akihiko throwing him down, grabbing his knees, fucking into him, breathing and gasping on the crook of his neck. The pet names and the endearments and the teasing. The way they fit against each other with intimacy and smooth perfection stemmed from years of drowning in the other’s body and learning every drop of the ocean that engulfed them. 

His hand moves as he jerks himself off nearly as an afterthought of pleasure - his body arches up towards nonexistent touches, his head thrown back to ghost lips skimming over his pulse point. When he comes, it's with the bitter taste in his mouth reminding him that his hand is his own, and the shudders trailing down his spine weren't caused by anything other than a handful of misplaced memories. 

He doesn't cry. But he doesn't fall asleep until well after sunrise. 

4.

The fourth day, he turns down an offer of sex. 

He reads the message from one of his classmates inviting him for drinks, ignores it, turns off his phone. Heads to the bathroom, fills up the bathtub with warm water, and cries so hard the little veins inside his nostrils break and blood trickles down the curve of his lips and turns drops of water to a sickly pink color. 

-

_ (interlude) _

“Dad?”

“Hello, Ugetsu. How have you been?”

_ Dreadful. Terrible. I haven’t slept in a week. _ “I’ve been fine. And you?”

“Okay. How’s everything? Any tours soon?”

“One in Europe, about a week from now.”

“Oh, I’ll get to see you play, then? Will you come over to Montreal?”

“I will, actually. I’ll send you a ticket if you want.”

“Of course, please do. I miss watching you play. My little genius.”

“Thanks, dad.”

“How’s your housemate?”

Ugetsu has to sit down to avoid falling. “He - had to move out, actually.”

“Oh? And can you handle rent?”

“Sure, sure.” _ Rent is about the one thing I can handle right now. _

“Okay. I have to go now, but I trust I’ll see you next week? We can go out for dinner.”

“Yes, of course. See you then.”

“Take care, son.”

-

5\. 

He’s been lying on the floor plucking at his violin strings for over an hour when he realizes it’s almost 8 pm and he hasn’t eaten anything substantial the entire day. 

This isn't something new, or something brought forth by Akihiko's absence. Ugetsu is as dissociated from his body as a person is capable of being; hunger normally goes to him as unnoticed as pain, as exhaustion. In his more obsessed periods, when the compulsion to make music drags at his bone marrow and gnaws at him from the inside out, when every single second he doesn’t spend with his hands on his violin feels like he’s dying, he used to completely forget about sleep and food until Akihiko nudged him and coaxed him into taking basic care of himself. 

Now, he's alone, there's nothing to eat in the fridge, and he doesn't have the energy to order delivery. 

He keeps plucking at the strings. 

When at last he finds some minimal motivation to get up and figure out something to eat, his vision goes black in the corners, his legs give out under him, and he drops back on the bed, heart pounding furiously, his hands cold and sweaty. He stays there until his breathing eases back down to something resembling normal, until he stops shaking and his throat stops closing up on itself. 

The rage that takes over him is something he hasn't felt since the last time he slapped Akihiko in the face and shoved him on the floor and yelled at him because _ he couldn't give up the violin, he couldn't, because giving up the violin meant giving up Ugetsu, because giving up the violin meant turning his back on everything, didn't he see that _. 

_ Pathetic, _ his mind screams at him as he throws the alarm clock to the floor and listens to it break. _ Weak and pathetic and ridiculous _ . A teacup crashes, shatters in a thousand porcelain pieces. _ No wonder he left you _ . Music sheets flutter to the floor, are torn apart. _ Who in their right mind would ever want to be with you? Dramatic fucking slut. You hit him and you slapped him and you kicked him out and you have the nerve to want him back. You don't deserve him. You never did. You had one good thing in your miserable life and you threw it away for no fucking reason. You deserve to be alone for the rest of your life. _

The sound of a plate breaking down the middle is loud enough to drag him out of himself. 

He doesn't look at what he's done. He slides down to the floor, buries his face in his hands, and screams until his throat goes hoarse. He doesn't have any more tears to cry. 

7.

A week after Akihiko leaves, Ugetsu drinks too much red wine, the cheap kind his father always told him never to come close to. _ Only the best for my little prodigy _ , he would say, as he gracefully sipped from a glass of the finest chardonnay, _ we need to take care of your taste. _ His gift for Ugetsu's eighteenth birthday was a dinner in the fanciest restaurant in town and his express permission to get elegantly tipsy on an expensive bottle of cabernet sauvignon, handpicked by him. He’d watched Ugetsu take a sip from the dark red liquid with a glint of pride in his black eyes. Ugetsu had felt like a man, then, powerful, as he twirled the wine around in the crystal glass. 

Like this, alone in his basement house, his mouth bitter and his tongue heavy with alcohol he bought for five bucks at the closest convenience store, the collar of his too-large shirt falling to uncover his neck and shoulder like a seduction targeted at no one, Ugetsu feels as if he’s spitting on his father’s three-piece suit. _ I’m sorry, dad. My taste was rotten long ago _ , he wants to tell him, _ I’ve been rotten since long ago. _

He wraps his lips around the mouth of the cheap bottle he's been carrying all night, tips his head back, feels the last of the wine slide down his throat. He stops, takes a breath, lowers the bottle and instinctively licks the corner of his wine-stained mouth - and is sharply reminded, in a backhand slap of memory, of the nights where he was feeling a bit more generous and fell to his knees for Akihiko, sucked him off, relished in the way he would make handholds of his hair and moan his name as if he was on the verge of collapsing from pleasure. 

He takes an unsteady step forward with the vague idea of reaching the fridge and drinking some water and maybe collapsing on the couch - 

He trips on the feet of one of the countless music stands. 

The contact between the back of his head and the polished tiles makes a sickeningly dry sound that resonates around the entire house. 

It hurts, in a hazy sort of way - he can feel the pain but he can barely comprehend it, feels the sick warmth of the slow trickle of blood trailing between his fingers. He's dizzy, his mind impossibly foggy; he couldn't get up if he tried, if he wanted to, can barely figure out how to get his feet under himself right now. His limbs are heavy, his hands unsteady. His fingers twitch in sick spasms against the floor as if reaching for someone who isn't there, an afterthought of the night where he thought about reaching for Akihiko and did not. 

He's not thinking when he grabs his phone inside the back pocket of his old jeans. The light from the screen is white and blinding, and his hands are too sweaty and clumsy for him to unlock it with his fingerprint, so it takes him five tries to put on his password. When he types on the number, however, there's no hesitation to his movements, no stutter-stop to correct the placement of a wrong digit - his touch glides over with the certainty that only ever comes with habit, and he barely realizes what he's doing, exactly, until a voice comes through the speaker. 

"Ugetsu?" the voice says, rough and hoarse and so comforting in its familiarity that Ugetsu feels his eyes filling with tears. 

"Aki -" he can hear himself whining, the name clumsily twirling around on top of his tongue to land needy and yearning on the air, the hand that's not pressed against the sore spot in his head reaching for his phone as if touching the cold metal is a way of reaching through to touch Akihiko's skin. 

"Ugetsu," Akihiko's voice is heavy with worry now, if Ugetsu closes his eyes he can almost see his brows furrowed together with concern, "What happened? Are you okay?"

Ugetsu has no idea what time it is - he told himself he'd stop drinking at one in the morning, but at one in the morning the bottle was only half-empty and now it's completely drained, and his vision is too hazy for him to figure out a concept as abstract as hours. He has no idea how worried he's just made Akihiko, but a dark part of his mind, made stronger and crueler by the cheap convenience store wine, whispers, _ make him worry and make him come to you. _

The wound on his head throbs painfully. He threads his fingers through his hair and feels the dried blood sticking the strands together. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, brings the phone closer to his mouth, and whimpers, "Aki, it _ hurts _."

He can hear, even through the haze filling up his mind, the sharp intake of breath on the other side of the call. The last rational part of his brain notices the exact moment when Akihiko caves, counts the seconds and catches up as soon as Akihiko says, his tone with all the focus of a man who has made a decision, "Are you at home? Are you alone?"

The way he says _ home _ and not _ your house _ sends a physical shiver down Ugetsu's spine. "Yeah," he drawls out, licks his lips. "Yeah."

"Okay. Don't move. I'm coming." 

Ugetsu can listen to the shuffle of movement, tell-tale signs of Akihiko coming to him as he speaks - and that knowledge, the petty victory of still being able to make Akihiko come back to him so easily, injects such a deep, full-body pleasure in his veins that he can feel the corner of his mouth drawing up to shape into a cruelly satisfied smile. 

Akihiko ends the call after that, and Ugetsu relaxes back against the floor, stretches and arches his spine like the cat Akihiko always compared him to - his head hurts if he lies on his back, so he shifts until he's lying down on his side, feels his cheek pressing up against the cold tile, and he _ laughs _ \- slurred, maniacally, the edges blurring on each other, the damp of his lips dragging on the hard surface. 

He closes his eyes, and waits. 

The sound of the front door unlocking shoots a white-hot piercing awareness through his dimmed-out brain. He shudders from his lying position, pushes at the floor with his palm to tip himself sideways and squint at Akihiko closing the door behind himself. 

"At least you locked the door," Akihiko breathes out as he rushes towards him, throwing his jacket on the back of the couch with all the careless grace of a gesture once so often performed, his voice dragged to the bone with concern. 

"Aki," Ugetsu whines, extends his hand to reach for him as Akihiko kneels down beside him. 

"What happened?" Akihiko asks, his strong arms wrapping under Ugetsu's knees and around his back and lifting him and pulling him close to the familiar warmth of his chest and steadily beating heart. Ugetsu melts, leans against him, presses his face to his sternum to feel his heartbeat. "Can you talk?"

"Yeah," Ugetsu swallows dry, cringes at the bitter taste on his tongue. He's not that drunk anymore, his vision clearing out and getting sharper - he stopped drinking when he finished the bottle, and he figures that happened a while ago. He could walk, he muses, could get his feet under himself and take the tentative steps necessary to guide him towards the bathroom and a shower and some semblance of control over his life, but the idea of being left alone again terrifies him. He wraps his hands in fists around Akihiko's shirt. "Tripped and fell. Think I hurt my head."

"Yeah, no shit," Akihiko says as he pushes the door to the bathroom open with his foot. "It bled like crazy, from what I can see. You sure you didn't bite your tongue too or anything?"

"I didn't," Ugetsu says. "See?" and he opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out, doesn't miss the way Akihiko's gaze drags over his lips. 

Akihiko looks away a moment later and doesn't deign him with a response. He gently places Ugetsu down on the coldness of the bathtub, fits his fingers to the hem of his shirt to push it off his body. His touch is careful where it pushes open the button of his jeans to slide them off, and still, it makes Ugetsu shiver when his knuckles brush against the smooth edge of his hips. Akihiko looks gorgeous like this, the fluorescent light overhead making his green eyes shine in a near-psychotic manner, the color way too bright. The shadows make the curve of his jaw sharper. 

Ugetsu wants to cut his hand on his cheekbones. 

The water starts filling up the tub. Ugetsu lets his body fall pliant, allows Akihiko to shift him into whatever position he deems best, obediently lowers his head when Akihiko presses at his nape in order to properly inspect the damage. 

"Jesus, Ugetsu," he whispers as he threads his fingers through the blood-soaked weight of Ugetsu's short hair on the back of his neck. "There's a nasty lump here. What did you do to yourself?"

Ugetsu hums idly. It hurts, the drag of Akihiko's searching touch over the wound, but the pain is comforting, throbbing proof of someone's presence next to him, and he thinks he would endure a lot more in order to have that. The water is covering his thighs and reaching his waist now, cold enough to shock him back into reality a bit more. 

Akihiko grabs the showerhead, turns it on, lets it wash off the blood sticking to Ugetsu's strands. The water starts to turn pinkish. Again, it _ hurts _, but Ugetsu grits his teeth and allows it to sober him up the rest of the way. 

"You know," Akihiko comments, scratching Ugetsu's scalp in order to clean it up properly, "for someone as dramatic as you are, you do deal with pain quite well."

"Bastard," Ugetsu says, not really knowing why. Akihiko lets out an amused chuckle. 

A few minutes later, Ugetsu's hair is clean and wet, sticking to his forehead and to the back of his neck, and the collar of Akihiko's shirt is humid. The splashing of the water inside the tub is the only noise in the bathroom other than their breathing. 

Ugetsu reaches out, takes Akihiko's face between his hands, and kisses him. 

Akihiko's mouth parts open immediately, instinctively, his body tilting forward in a helpless melting towards Ugetsu. If there's any hesitation to be found in some corner of his mind, there's none to be felt in the way his lips slide over and devour Ugetsu's. 

"You're drunk," Akihiko complains against Ugetsu's mouth, but his fingers are wrapped tight around his hips, his nails digging into wet, slippery skin. 

Ugetsu scoffs. "Am not."

"You are. You taste like cheap wine." 

"You always said you liked to taste wine off my mouth," Ugetsu says, licks the curve of Akihiko's upper lip, trails his hand down the dip of his collarbone under his shirt, down until he finds the cold, familiar metal of his nipple piercing - he tugs at it with his fingernail with all the arrogant certainty he uses to play his violin, relishes on the full-body shudder it earns him like a well-played note. "Or is it not true anymore? Have you changed that much, Aki?" 

Akihiko reaches for him then, desperate and clumsy, lifting him off the tub and forcing him to stand, slamming the small of his back against the edge of the sink and stealing Ugetsu's breath away from his lungs in a smooth sequence of movements stemmed from experience with handling the other's body. 

"You're reluctant," Ugetsu points out even as Akihiko's fingers tighten around the naked curve of his waist, because he knows how to read Akihiko through everything, from a lilt in his tone to a stutter of his touch. "Are you fucking that bassist now? Is that why?"

Akihiko hisses, pushes him back more strongly against the sink, fits his thigh between Ugetsu's legs. "Don't talk about him."

Ugetsu wraps his arms around Akihiko's neck, arches up, smiles. "Does he kiss like I do?"

Akihiko lets out a sound like a wounded animal, presses his knee against Ugetsu's hard-on through his soaked boxers, licks up his neck like he's quenching his thirst in the drops of water trailing down Ugetsu's throat, the cold touch of his tongue piercing dragging against his skin. "_ No one _ kisses like you do," he says, his voice shattering open as if Ugetsu has drawn a knife to slash it clean in the middle, and Ugetsu smiles wider, because he knows he's won. 

"No one," Akihiko whispers once more against Ugetsu's pulse point. He sounds like he's in pain, like he's hurting somewhere down to his very bones. 

8.

In the morning of the eighth day, Ugetsu wakes up with the worst headache he's ever had in his life and with the distinct gut-filling nausea that he's learned to expect from hangovers caused by cheap red wine.

Before he even opens his eyes, he throws his hand behind himself to feel around for any remnant of Akihiko's body heat, and pulls it back to his chest in a breathtaking shock of loneliness when he doesn't find any hint of lingering warmth. The bed is as cold as it has been for a week, for longer, as a matter of fact; and he shifts and turns and stares at the ceiling and tries to make some sense of what happened. 

The pillow is gentle under his head, but still the wound is painful, and it brings back some much-needed awareness. He remembers he got drunk, remembers he fell and hurt himself, remembers the white-hot slide of Akihiko's lips against his and the drag of Akihiko's hands on the inner lines of his thighs. The dull, much welcome ache on the base of his spine tells a clearer story than any of his foggy memories could ever hope to convey - but he doesn't remember if they ever reached the bed, or if he collapsed on the mattress and fell asleep by himself or with another body pressed up to his back. 

He trails his fingers up from the dip of his collarbone to the curve of his jaw, a mockery of what he'd done to Akihiko the night before - but it feels wrong, his jaw softer and his neck longer, a painful reminder of everything he doesn't have beside him right now. Still, he continues, pushes and touches until he finds what he was looking for, until the tips of his fingers skim over the bruise Akihiko's teeth left behind. 

He hesitates for a moment. Traces the edges of the bruise with his fingernail, back and forth, near-soothing. 

Then he takes a deep breath, and presses down. 

It _ hurts _, a sharp piercing pain that draws a whimper out of his dry lips. He presses deeper, harder, as if carving the bruise, willing it to become permanent, a mark on his skin that will last longer than the couple of days it usually takes to disappear. 

When he comes back to himself, there's a small drop of blood rising up on the side of his neck, and tears running down his face. 

  
8\. _(second movement)_

It's nearing 2 in the afternoon when he finally gathers enough strength in his legs to push himself up from his bed and attempt some sort of coherency and functional human behavior. 

He puts his phone to charge, not wanting to deal with the surely endless stream of messages he has to answer and has been ignoring for nearly two days. He sits on the edge of the mattress, drags his hands down his face; out of all the terrible things about this morning, he particularly isn't looking forward to staring at the mess he's sure he must have left behind, to looking up and facing what a disaster of a person he's turned himself into; and then he does look up, and lets out a small startled noise.

The house is spotless, as clean as can be; the music stands are on their right place, the sheets and notebooks piled up on the table, the dishes properly washed and set to dry. The clothes he'd thrown about haphazardly aren't anywhere to be found on the floor, or on the couch, or on the hanger by the door, or on the door handle - he's sure, he realizes with a shock, that he would find them in the wardrobe, probably folded in the neatest fashion possible. 

The bruise on his neck throbs. He can see Akihiko everywhere. In every washed glass, every carefully placed music sheet, in the containers he finds in the fridge, full of pre-prepared food for him to heat up and eat for lunch and dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, in the pot filled with fresh coffee. If he closes his eyes and breathes in, he can almost _ smell _ him, the scent of his aftershave, the sharply masculine cologne he wears - Ugetsu remembers how he put it on after showering, pouring it on his hands and pressing the tips of his fingers first to the soft skin under his jaw, then to each of his wrists, then to his hair, and how he'd lean back and let Ugetsu straddle his lap, nuzzle his neck, touch under his shirt, kiss him and rub himself up all over him until Ugetsu's cardigan had the exact same scent; he could go to his classes and press the collar to his nose and inhale and smell Akihiko.

It takes him every single ounce of willpower he has ever possessed in all his two decades of life to not fall to his knees and break down sobbing.

When he's done with eating breakfast and drinking two mugs of coffee - and he washes the dishes after he does, even if he hates how dry his palms get after he touches the dish soap, because now there's no one to do it for him - he puts on some clothes, sits back down on his bed, puts on some music through the speakers and turns on his phone. 

The notifications come rushing in, overwhelming. He ignores all of them, puts on his password (Akihiko's birthday mixed up with his own, because it was easy enough to remember and not too obvious that anyone would guess it, and he makes a big, neon-yellow-highlighted note in his brain to change it, even if he has no idea what he would change it to) and scrolls down the Line app until he finds what he's looking for. 

Akihiko has never been fond of long texts. His conversations with Ugetsu were always comprised of short messages in response to Ugetsu's long, provocative blocks of text. Some things don't ever change; there are exactly three new messages shaped as straightforward demands waiting for him. 

_ i left some food in the fridge. eat before it goes bad _

_ how's ur head? _

_ drink some water when u wake up _

Ugetsu takes a deep breath. 

_ My head is fine, _ he types. _ Better than last night. And I drank water. _

Five minutes later, _ did u eat _

_ I did. Thank you for the food, _ Ugetsu sends, stops. _ And for cleaning up the house, _he adds as an afterthought. 

_ it was a mess _, comes back the clipped answer. 

_ try not to drink so much again _

_ i won't always be there when u get hurt _

_ Won't you? _ , Ugetsu types in a rush before deleting. _ I don't need you every time I get hurt _, he types, deletes again. 

_ What if I need you, though? What if I get drunk again? What if I fall and hurt myself? What if I break one of the glasses and step in the shards? If I call you, won't you come? _

Deleted once more. 

In the end, he answers, _ Okay. _

_ we can't keep doing it like this, ugetsu _

_ it's not even been a week. _

Ugetsu's hands grab the phone with psychotic force. _ I never said I wanted to do this _ , he types furiously. _ I never said I wanted you to leave, I never said I wanted to break up, I don't want to do this and apparently, neither do you, so why don't you just come home and stop pretending that you can ever get over me after 3 years of sleeping in my bed? _

He erases all of that. Breathes in, out. 

_ Send my regards to the bassist~ _

Akihiko doesn't text back. 

Twenty minutes later, Ugetsu is sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, flipping through his music sheets to find the exact piece he wants to practice today, and then something occurs to him. He grabs his phone from where he left it next to him, and he texts, 

_ If the door was locked, how did you get in? _

Akihiko answers him nearly half an hour later, when Ugetsu is already going tunnel-vision focused on his violin and his music. It's a beautiful song, this one. A favorite of his. Brahms. A gorgeous adagio, in D major, that starts off near-silent, and slow, rising up in a pretty, gentle crescendo, like a lover's kiss. 

It's the song Akihiko played in the national competition where he placed second to Ugetsu's first. Ever since that day, Ugetsu has derived some sort of sick, cruel pleasure from playing it so much better than Akihiko ever will, his fingers flowing with much more ease, the touch of the violin close to his cheek, his bow caressing the air with a level of dexterity Akihiko has only ever experienced by going to Ugetsu's concertos and hearing him practice at home. 

The sound of the notification takes him by surprise. 

_ i never gave u ur key back _

_ i can give it back to u on class if u want _

Ugetsu types a simple text and goes back to practicing. 

_ Keep it, _ his message reads. _ For emergencies. _

  
15.

Two weeks after Akihiko leaves and one week after his cheap wine hangover disaster, Ugetsu snaps at Nijimura. This isn't news in any way, shape or form, but it is a remarkable occurrence to take note of, since it took Ugetsu fifteen days of depression-induced isolation to reach the Psychotic Phase of the break-up process. 

At least, snapping at Nijimura is so familiar it borders on comforting. If anything can be comforting these days. 

"You're _ slipping _," he snarls, dragging the word viciously as far as it'll go, making it sound like Nijimura's alleged mistake is a near personal insult to Ugetsu's very dignity as a violinist as he drops his arm to the side and lowers his bow. 

Nijimura stares at him with such icy coldness over the curve of his own violin that a lesser musician would've cowered. "The fuck does that even mean?"

This is why he's a good partner for Ugetsu's duo violin practices. 

Nijimura, or Ugetsu's _ viola boyfriend, _ as Akihiko was fond of calling him, is a viola player first, a violinist second, and something that on a good day slightly resembles humanity third. He's unfairly pretty in the way particularly venomous snakes are pretty, black straight bangs swooping in a charming wave over his forehead and a sharp-edge undercut tracing over the delicate curve of his ears. He kisses like he wants to draw blood, and fucks like he wants to murder. He plays with all the arrogance that stems from hard work and experience, and he hates Ugetsu's genius with a fierce, burning rage Ugetsu has yet to find anywhere else. 

He's not a friend, or a lover, or even a particularly intimate fuck buddy. He's an acquaintance, a classmate, a number to call when Ugetsu wants to feel a man's body against his, and his first pick for duo violin practices now that Akihiko is gone. 

Ugetsu flips his hair back from his forehead. "It means exactly what I _ fucking _ said. Your fingers are slipping. If this is too hard for you, just admit it already and I'll find someone else."

The piece is hard, truth be told. First movement of Bach's double violin concerto, D minor, BWV 1043. It goes on, rising and turning with all the intensity of a chase, and it requires a level of skill most people simply do not possess. One of the two violinists starts, and the other must keep up after a beat, and the quick progression of the song doesn't allow for a single moment to take a breath. It requires skill, and experience, and _ guts _ \- and, most of all, a synergy between the musicians; and Ugetsu misses Akihiko so much he thinks he's going to bleed out on top of the music sheets at the floor. Akihiko knows him, as a person and as a violinist. He would know how to keep up, would know the precise second in which to slide in with his part of the song, would know how to move and shift and play until the piece felt like a gorgeous whole, the way it was meant to be. It's the type of intimacy that one only develops after years of being together, and Ugetsu _ misses _ it, desperately, intensely. Misses how easy it was.

But he gets to be cruel with Nijimura in a way he never was with Akihiko, partly because he's in a bad mood and mostly because he simply doesn't give a fuck about the other's feelings, and it's cathartic in more ways than one. 

"My fingers are _ not _ slipping," Nijimura spits back. "If you were actually paying attention to the music instead of making faces as if you think your ex-boyfriend will come back to dick you down if you look enough like a bitch, you'd know that." 

Ugetsu flips his bow in a smooth whip-slash of movement, presses it up against Nijimura's chin to tilt it up. "Stop playing like you want your dead father to come back from the grave and fix your astounding collection of daddy issues _ and _ your praise kink, and _ maybe _ I'll start paying attention."

Nijimura tsks, superficially unaffected by the mention of his father, who has, as a matter of fact, been dead since high school, back when they didn't have to worry about paying the water bill and commuting to classes and when tragedies were tragedies and not just something to be mentioned every now and then during a duo violin practice or in the waiting room of a clinic. He pushes Ugetsu's bow away from his face with the tip of his finger. "You're in a shitty mood today."

"Shut up and play, Nijimura. Decently, this time."

Nijimura snickers, straightens his back and fits his violin lovingly on the curve of his jaw - but his eyes are hard where they stare at Ugetsu, like an obsidian stone kept between someone's teeth, and when he says, "I think you just _ really _ need Kaji to dick you down," Ugetsu doesn't have an answer other than to viciously kick at his ankle and start playing again. 

-

A while after week two, Ugetsu can still feel the tendrils of enraged mania wrapped around his knuckles when he goes to open the door for Mafuyu. 

Mafuyu is a good kid in the way children traumatized by their fathers and small stray dogs are good. Good at following orders, good at shutting the fuck up, good at sitting there and looking pretty and staring at the world with cotton-candy eyes. His fingers cling tightly to the shoulder strap of the guitar case on his back. 

Ugetsu leans against the doorframe, crosses his arms and watches as Mafuyu bows respectfully, hands folded, the soft place on the back of his skull strangely vulnerable to the sunlight above them. 

"Ugetsu-san," he breathes out with the sweetly careful deliberation that trails his every word. "Thanks for having me." 

The display of faux vulnerability gets under Ugetsu's skin - Mafuyu moves and talks as if he would take a knife between the notches of his spine and thank the knife for cutting him in half, but the look in his eyes glints like a particularly dangerous diamond fit behind his hazelnut irises. 

"Not a problem, honey," Ugetsu smiles at him. "Come inside."

He fits his hand on Mafuyu's nape, pushes him inside the house with deliberate force on his fingertips intended to break his balance. 

Mafuyu pushes back, near instinctively, shifts his feet on the floor, and doesn't stumble on his way down the steps. 

Ugetsu's smile has teeth as he follows Mafuyu around the corner to the basement house. In any other situation, he would take the lead, but it would be an insult to Ugetsu's genius to assume he would be stupid enough to let someone like Mafuyu where he can't see him. Mafuyu has a hidden dagger somewhere in the flick of his wrist and the way he glances at things through the corner of his eyes, and Ugetsu would rather be able to see it coming if it ever happens to press up against his guts. 

"Does your boyfriend know you're here?" he asks as he sits down on the floor next to Mafuyu. The house is much tidier than it was before Akihiko cleaned it up after the red wine disaster, but Ugetsu is as much of a mess inside as he is outside these last few weeks, and so he has to push some music sheets out of the way in order to make room for the two of them. 

"He - Uenoyama-kun?" 

"The guitarist, isn't he your boyfriend?"

Ugetsu extends his hand for Mafuyu to give him the guitar. Mafuyu looks at his open palm with a cutthroat wariness far too vicious for Ugetsu's liking for a split second before he relaxes his shoulders and allows the Fender to be taken from him. 

"I -," Mafuyu stutters after a beat, as if he's just remembered the question, and he blushes a soft pink when he does. "Yes," he says, deep fondness caressing over the word. 

Ugetsu doesn't have much patience for teenage love lately. "_ So _, does he know you're here?" 

"He does."

Ugetsu snickers, finishes tuning the Fender with a twirl of his fingers. "How peculiar."

Mafuyu stares at him. "What is?"

"Akihiko didn't tell anyone he was living with me. He didn't tell anyone about my existence at all. It was amusing to see him coming up with the craziest excuses to avoid mentioning he had a housemate. It's just weird to know that now all of your band knows. About me," Ugetsu hands over the guitar to Mafuyu, leans back on the couch, wraps his arms around his knees tight. It feels like one more piece of intimacy flew out from the space between his palms and smashed itself to pieces against the stairs. Like the fragments of their little world are falling apart to dust in his hands. "That's all."

Mafuyu tilts his head to the side like a little bird. "Are you alright, Ugetsu-san?"

"Of course I am."

"Okay," Mafuyu nods, and it's clear as a trill that he doesn't believe it. "Can I play?"

Ugetsu waves permission with a regal movement of his hand. "Go on."

Mafuyu plays, and Ugetsu leans back, closes his eyes, and listens. 

When he finishes, Ugetsu has every single cruel remark that occurred to him during the song weighing heavy on the tip of his tongue like there's someone biting at it. The song is _ good _, beautiful and earnest with emotion, but the timing was off, Mafuyu could seriously make use of learning how a metronome works, his voice crackled in some bits, his fingerwork is clumsy from lack of experience. The chords slipped, the lyrics could be far more complex, a few notes must be changed here and there - 

Instead, he breathes out and says. "That was good."

Mafuyu's entire expression shines like stardust. "Was it?"

Ugetsu can't help the smile that takes possession of his hesitant lips. "It was."

He can go over the criticism later. For now, he allows Mafuyu's eyes to glint with pride at his own achievement. 

It's more rewarding than he thought it would be. 

-

"Ugetsu-san, can I -" 

"Hm?"

"Can I - just, can I come play here more? Ugetsu-san's house is soundproof so it wouldn't bother anyone and the neighbors are already complaining from me playing late at night and I could just come over for a little to practice, but - but if it's too much of a bother it's okay, I'm sorry I asked and -"

"Mafuyu."

"Y - yes."

"You can come over to practice. It's okay. Just text me before you do."

"Yes! Yes, of course, thank you so much, Ugetsu-san!"

"Get home safely. And send Akihiko my regards.”

-

_ (one afternoon) _

He has gone back to his habit of listening to music while walking down the street. 

As busy as Akihiko was, with his three part-time jobs and classes and band rehearsal, he always accompanied Ugetsu to the grocery store or to the bank or anywhere else they were forced to go to solve day-to-day issues. He would hop on the passenger seat, tease Ugetsu about his driving, pick a song to play on the car stereo, and they would set off into the city to take care of a bill or grab something at someone’s house. Perfectly ordinary, boring daily chores - print copies of a textbook in order to save money, deal with credit card problems, buy rice and soba and the soft drinks Ugetsu loves, get Akihiko a new coat, fix the cracked display of one of their phones. Perfectly ordinary, but for the man Ugetsu had at his side. They talked, and teased, joked and pushed and held hands all the way through every single line of the to-do list. Sometimes, they grabbed coffee afterward, at their favorite cafeteria, and shared a cappuccino while talking about music. 

Now, Ugetsu has gone back to what he used to do before he even met Akihiko - walk instead of taking the car, listening to music on his earphones. He has to do something minor, grab a syllabus over at Nijimura’s from a class he skipped last week, and he finds himself staring at the sky, shoving his hands inside the pockets of his coat, and wondering. 

If Akihiko was here, they would have their arms entwined, Ugetsu leaning against him, and they would be bickering about something or other. 

As it is, Ugetsu is listening to Brahms and looking at the cloudless sky. 

He finds himself smiling. Bitter, but a smile. 

_ Brahms, _ he remembers himself saying. _ It was good. _

-

“You look like a fucking mess.”

“Did I ask, Nijimura?”

“I mean, you’re always beautiful, but - holy fuck, you really _ do _ miss Kaji, don’t you?”

“_ Fuck off _, just give me the syllabus.”

“You look like you crawled out of a _ grave _, my dear. Don’t you wanna go out for some coffee at least?”

“I’m not gonna let you jump my bones tonight, bastard.”

“I wasn’t offering, you bitch. Just trying to be nice. Jesus. Go cry yourself into a hospital for all I care.”

“....Fine, then.”

“What?”

“_ Fine _, let’s go get coffee. But you’re paying.” 

-

Ugetsu doesn’t think nearly as much about the night of the break-up as he assumed he would. 

Instead, he thinks about before. He thinks about the nights he texted Akihiko to go sleep somewhere else and allowed himself to be fucked by other men while wishing they were Akihiko. He thinks about the mugs he broke, the glasses he threw to the floor, the backhand slaps and the tears. He thinks about the days right after their worst fights, where Ugetsu played the violin until his fingers were bleeding and Akihiko spent the entire day doing extra hours in his part-time jobs. He thinks about their honeymoon weeks, where they didn’t leave the house, where they woke up and went to bed in each other’s arms. He thinks about the first time Akihiko met his father, how he introduced him as his housemate but his father smiled at him as if he knew. How his father took Ugetsu aside after dinner and said, _ he’s a good man _. 

“He is a good man, dad,” Ugetsu says against his pillow. “But I’m not.”

-

Four hours before he's supposed to be at the departure gate, Ugetsu takes his car and drives to Akihiko's new place. 

He doesn't text him to say he's going. He doesn't call. He barely thinks about it - he checked the address Akihiko texted him a couple of days ago, locked the house, put the key inside the smallest pocket of his messenger bag, struggled to shove his luggage inside the trunk, turned on the car stereo, and started driving. 

Akihiko's new place is in a small, unassuming apartment complex, just north of downtown. The doors are bright red, and the color feels as if it's distorting reality when Ugetsu stares at it. 

He takes a deep breath. Raises his hand. Knocks once, with the back of his knuckles, as always. 

Akihiko will know it's him. 

He can hear the steps approaching the door, the key being inserted in the lock, the sound of a deadbolt being opened. When the door handle turns, he doesn't have the time to look away before Akihiko's bright green eyes are staring directly into his own. 

"Aki," he breathes out. 

"Ugetsu," Akihiko says. His voice is rough still, comforting, neutral. He looks Ugetsu up and down, the mess of his hair, the messenger bag at his hip, the black coat he always wears for plane trips. "Are you leaving?"

Ugetsu nods. "A tour. Europe."

"That's nice. You wanna come in?"

_ Yes, please. _Ugetsu shifts his feet, grabs at the strap of his bag. Nods again. 

"Make yourself at home," Akihiko says as he steps to the side to let Ugetsu in. 

The place is small, much smaller than the basement house. It would feel claustrophobic, if not for the distinct feeling of _ home _ emanating from every single piece of furniture. The windows are large, letting the sunlight in like waves of bright warmth. The balcony is big for one person, but just wide enough for two. The curtains are white, translucent, and Ugetsu can see they're cheap, but they look ethereal to his exhausted sight. The kitchen is lived-in, washed dishes set to dry and papers held up on the door of the fridge by little magnets. The living room looks cramped with Akihiko's drums, but his violin rests peacefully on the coffee table, its case open as if it's been played recently. The sofa isn't expensive or fancy, and it's small for a man as tall as Akihiko, but it looks so impossibly comfortable Ugetsu's tired body aches to lay down on it. 

"Sit down," Akihiko coaxes gently - Ugetsu startles so bad at the sound of his voice that he nearly loses his feet. 

"I wouldn't - I don't mean to intrude -" he stammers, but Akihiko lets out such a warm chuckle it soothes Ugetsu into shutting up. 

"Intruding? Ugetsu, please. Just make yourself comfortable." Akihiko scratches at the back of his neck and nearly looks flustered for a moment. "It's not your fancy house, but..."

Ugetsu sits down on the sofa carefully, clutches his bag close to his lap. "It's great. Thank you."

Akihiko sits down on the other end of the couch. They're not touching at all. His eyes consider Ugetsu with something that verges on curiosity, as if they're meeting for the first time. "So, you're going on a tour?"

"Yeah."

"Are you excited?"

"I… guess?"

Akihiko lets out another chuckle, unexpected enough that Ugetsu startles again. 

"God, you're so damn jumpy today," Akihiko comments, but Ugetsu can see the way his fingers are tight on the back of the couch, his entire body tensed up as well. "Just relax. I'm not gonna bite." 

Three weeks ago, Ugetsu would've smirked and said, _ won't you? _

Today, he mumbles, "I've been meaning to ask. Can you drive me to the airport? And can you keep the car while I'm gone?"

"Sure. No problem." 

"Thank you." Ugetsu clings to his bag, feels the shape of the object that has been weighing down on his shoulder for the past couple of days. He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "And also."

Akihiko raises an eyebrow. 

Before Ugetsu loses his nerve, he opens his bag, and takes out a box. 

"Here," he says as he hands out the box for Akihiko to take. 

"For me?"

"For you." 

Akihiko's eyes widen as he takes in the sight of the two matching mugs carefully placed inside the box. 

"A gift for your new place, I guess. I know we don't live together anymore," Ugetsu says, entwining his fingers together so they'll stop shaking as bad as they are, "but maybe keep the other one for when I stop by. If you want me to stop by, that is."

Akihiko spends long seconds staring at the mugs, while Ugetsu stares at him. At the face he fell in love with, the sharp curve of the jaw, the glint of his green eyes, the soft part of his lips. 

When Akihiko lifts his eyes from the mugs, he's smiling. 

"When's your flight?" he asks. 

"Why?"

"Do you have the time for a coffee? And a smoke?"

Ugetsu smiles for the first time in two weeks. "I do."

-

It turns out that Akihiko's new balcony is just wide enough for two people to smoke on. 

**Author's Note:**

> • inspiration for the title was the song 'music to make you stagger', by thievery corporation. kudos to my french teacher for showing it to me. 
> 
> • yes, it is possible to cry hard enough to bleed. i've seen it happen. 
> 
> • a cookie goes to anyone who can pinpoint the inspiration for nijimura's character. (hint: name and backstory come from a sports anime);
> 
> • a massive amount of thanks to thea (@narcxssus on twitter and okayantigone here on ao3) and silver (silverhedges on ao3) for taking the time to proofread this. normally i don't ask for betas, because i can't handle criticism, but this work just ended up so long i needed help. thank you for dealing with my huge amount of projecting and for answering my text at one in the morning. you two are fantastic. 
> 
> • this fic wouldn't exist if it weren't, again, for the amazing, wonderful ikaros. she's half the reason i've been dedicating so much of my time to akihiko and ugetsu and their fascinating dynamics - not a single word out of these 9k-something would be here if ikaros hadn't cheered me on and supported me for the days it took me to write. if it weren't for her, this fic would have nothing but a lonely first scene and it would've never seen the light of day, and now it's one of the projects i'm proudest of. she got excited with every snippet, helped me with some of the concepts that make up the very structure of this fic and of my entire way of seeing and writing about akihiko and ugetsu, and i will never have enough words to thank her. i hope you enjoy your gift. see you in montreal! 
> 
> • if you've read it this far, thank you. you're what keeps me going even when my wrist is absolutely murdering me. you're what makes writing the thing i love to do the most in the world.
> 
> • i poured myself a shot of golden-colored vodka after i finished writing this. i don't even like vodka, but it felt appropriate. the name is tofka. actually quite good.


End file.
